April 911 call: 'Crazy emergency' on I-495 bridge

A Wilmington business owner says he alerted the Delaware Department of Transportation about a problem with the now-closed I-495 bridge over the Christina River more than a month and a half ago. (6/6/14)

A Wilmington business owner says he alerted the Delaware Department of Transportation about a problem with the now-closed I-495 bridge over the Christina River more than a month and a half ago.

Charles Allen Jr. said he talked to a 911 dispatcher and, later, a DelDOT official on April 15 about the bridge "separating," raising questions about when the transportation agency first heard of potential problems with the span.

DelDOT closed the bridge Monday evening after discovering the structure was leaning and could no longer safely support traffic, which averaged 90,000 vehicles a day across the bridge.

"It's kind of a crazy emergency," Allen tells a 911 dispatcher, according to a recording. "The bridge on 495 that goes over the [Christina] River between 12th Street and – what's the name, Terminal Avenue – the bridge appears to be separating."

The News Journal obtained a copy of the 911 call from New Castle County on Friday.

Transportation Secretary Shailen Bhatt said Friday he was unaware of Allen's call. He said his priority is dealing with the crisis and getting the bridge reopened. Then, he'll launch an inquiry into whether the correct actions were taken by staff leading up to the closure.

"There was no loss of life," Bhatt said. "That, to me, means that – whether we did it exactly right – the important thing is that we got it closed."

Allen, of Elkton, Md., is the second citizen in the last week to say he alerted DelDOT that something wasn't right at the 40-year-old span in the area of Christiana Avenue near the Port of Wilmington.

R. David Charles, a geotechnical engineer with the firm Duffield Associates, contacted DelDOT and sent photos of tilted bridge supports on May 29. DelDOT followed up and closed the span four days later.

In an interview Friday, Allen said he was headed home from work, driving in the left southbound on I-495 shortly after 5 p.m. He looked left as he crossed the river and noticed the northbound lanes were about a foot higher than his.

"I drive over that bridge every day. I've been doing it for 25 years," Allen says in the 911 recording.

"I just noticed on my way home the median strip is separating, like, about a foot difference between the two jersey barriers, in between the center of the road. I tried to get a hold of DelDOT. That's why I'm so long calling you. I can't get a hold of anybody."

He immediately dialed 411 as he drove and asked them to connect him to DelDOT. He got a voice mailbox, and decided that wasn't good enough, he said.

Allen dialed 411 again, and the operator connected him to 911. He explained his safety concerns to the dispatcher, and she told him someone from DelDOT would be calling. A DelDOT rep phoned him within 15 minutes. Allen recounted what he saw on the bridge and answered a series of questions.

The call lasted approximately four minutes, according to phone records provided by Allen. The incoming number – with a local Smyrna exchange – goes to the offices of DelDOT's Traffic Section in Smyrna.

Allen recalls the DelDOT rep saying someone would be out to inspect the issue. That was the last he heard from the agency until he called around this week after the bridge closed. "They were completely aware, and I told them about it. Whether they chose to act on it is a different story," said Allen, owner of the Northeast Body Shop in Wilmington.

DelDOT spokeswoman Sandy Roumillat said staff are checking for a report of Allen's April 15 call.

During a visit to the shutdown I-495 bridge on Friday, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, commended Bhatt for the "prompt and effective and responsible action" that he and his engineers have taken to tackle whatever's causing the structure to lean.

After Gov. Jack Markell declared a limited state of emergency on Thursday, federal officials approved $2 million in emergency-relief funds to assist with traffic control and preliminary engineering.

"Much more will likely be needed in federal resources, and I'm committed to working with the rest of Delaware's congressional delegation to make sure those resources are available," said Coons, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

DelDOT's investigations have focused heavily on a contractor's 55,000-ton stockpile of dirt stretching the length of a football field to the east of the affected piers. The bridge is leaning in that direction as much as 4 degrees out of vertical alignment.

Keogh Contracting Co., which owns the dirt, has been working to remove the material since Monday, when engineers determined the load could be distorting the ground around crucial anchoring structures.

DelDOT has hired a contractor expedite the pace of dirt removal, in addition to state crews working around the clock to help, Bhatt said.

This week, excavations revealed that steel piles in the bridge's foundation are deformed and displaced sideways, creating cracks across the width of concrete footings. Crews have found a eight fractured footings, and engineers believe the problem is isolated to those four sets of leaning piers, officials said Friday.

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Charles Allen Jr., owner of Northeast Body Shop in Wilmington, called authorities to notify them of the problem on the I-495 Christina River bridge on April 15.(Photo: DANIEL SATO/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Bhatt previously told reporters that Duffield's report of an anomaly came late on May 30. That's because May 30 is when Barry Benton, assistant director of bridges, first learned of it, Bhatt said.

DelDOT's Traffic Management Center received a call about "ride-ability" issues on the bridge, also on May 30. A crew drove over the bridge that day but did not discern anything.

A bridge-inspection crew didn't check out the site until Monday morning, June 2.

"Obviously, I would have preferred that they went out on Friday [May 30], rather than Monday," Bhatt said. "It's impossible to go back and say, in retrospect, what we would have done [then] because I don't know what the conditions of the bridge were."

Geotechnical experts suspect that significant movement of the structure occurred over the weekend. Judging from the Duffield photos, Bhatt said, "I cannot imagine the conditions Friday were what the condition were Monday."

"We do not have anything to hide on this," Bhatt added. "If [the Duffield email] had said on Thursday, 'Your bridge is tilting to the right,' we would have dropped everything and gotten out here. That's not what it said. It said it was 'a little out of plumb.'"

On Tuesday, Bhatt said that had the agency received a 911 call about the bridge, crews would have responded immediately.

Contact Aaron Nathans at 324-2786 or anathans@delawareonline.com or Melissa Nann Burke at (302) 324-2329 or mburke@delawareonline.com.